The Collective Abigail
by Shade the Viridescent
Summary: "Baker, Abigail." Three girls stepped up. McGonagall blinked at them, wanting to finish the Sorting. "Which of you is Abigail Baker?" The three girls grimaced, and one stepped up. "We all are, ma'am." Triplets causing chaos at Hogwarts, oh boy!
1. Intro

Me: *peers carefully around corner, pops out* Hi! This is indeed my first published story, The Collective Abigail~! They will pop up randomly in most other Harry Potter stories I have, mainly as background characters. This story was made because the Abigails popped into my head one day, and took Remus hostage the next, demanding that I write about them. ^ ^'

Frankie: *filing nails* You're forgetting something important again, dahhling.

Me: Oh, right. Let me say it now, this story is **humor**. Not romance. **None of the Abigails will be falling in love with anyone. **They're just there to make the characters' lives a little more insane. ^ ^'

Remus: I think he meant the other kind of disclaimer.

Me: Oh, right. If you recognize it, I don't own it (including Dr. Frank N Furter, who's currently...trying to molest Remus again. Dammit.) . Except the Abigails. I own them. *faint growling heard in the background* ... Well, mostly.

-x-

Harry Potter stood nervously with the other first years as he waited for his turn to sit beneath the weird hat with the musical complex. Honestly, who bursts into random song anymore? The only times he'd seen anything to that effect were when he snuck out of his closet into the sitting room to catch small glimpses of old movies that Aunt Petunia made Dudley watch when they were younger. Even in those, however, the singer had never been a tattered piece of antediluvian headgear.

He was jolted out of his admittedly rambling reverie by a strange occurrence. Strange even by the new standards that he was supposed to adapt, he supposed. The stern woman who was reading through the names called out,

"Baker, Abigail." This in itself was normal, however, three young girls stepped up to the stool. They looked similar, although one was short, stubby, and dirty blonde, with a spray of freckles across her nose, one was slightly taller with light brown hair pulled back into a sort of twist-thing, and the third was positively tiny, a scrawny, dinky thing with ash-blonde hair that hung in a fine curtain around her face. All three had the same dark blue eyes, however, and were clearly related. McGonagall looked confused, but quickly regained her composure.

"Which of you is Abigail Baker?" she asked primly, clearly wanting to get on with the Sorting. The three girls grimaced at each other, and the dirty blonde stepped forward.

"We all are," she said clearly. At the older witch's questioning look, she glared at her apparent sisters. The tallest one gave a small sigh.

"We're triplets," she added, with the voice of one who is tired of giving the same speech over and over again. "Our parents decided it would be easier to give us all the same name, so that they wouldn't have problems calling us the wrong name."

"However, we ended up looking nothing alike," the tiny one finished, bored. "So now we're stuck with the same name."

"Our old teachers had the same problem in primary school," the first said with a broad smile, "so they just called us the Collective Abigail." Without further ado, and seemingly oblivious to the stares of the entire hall—except for this one Gryffindor sixth-year, who was snoring in his empty plate—the three Abigails clambered up onto the stool, carefully sitting so they'd all fit. The hat was placed on the heads of all three one at a time, and to the surprise of no one—except the first years, who had no idea that all the important characters are either evil bastards placed in Slytherin, or put in Gryffindor to be helpful to Harry and Co. at some point, and the other two houses are just for plot points to be tossed in—were ushered to their table with a cry of

"GRYFFINDOR!"

The three climbed down off the stool, and wandered through slightly hesitant applause to the red and gold table, where they sat next to the snoring sixth-year, and took it upon themselves to see how many utensils they could get tangled in his russet hair before he woke up. Harry stared at the Collective Abigail until the next name was called, upon which he gave himself a shake and returned to the precious plot. He thought no more of the Abigails until a few incidents in rapid succession made him more conscious of them, and also of Malfoy's strange knee hair.

-x-

Please review~! Malfoy's knee hair will be in one of the next two or three chapters. Sorry about it being so short! (...that's what she said...)


	2. Of Mud Fights and Scariness

**Chapter 1: Of Mud Fights and Scariness**

Thank you so much Lvmj, Lrose000, and InsertManiacLaughterHere~! ^_^

Disclaimer: I do not own the lovely world of Harry Potter. I do, however, own the red-haired sixth year, and *coughcough_unfortunately_cough* the Abigails.

The Collective Abigail: *perk up* What was that? *glare*

Me: Nooooothing...

TCA: ... *growl*

Me: Gah~ *fleeeeeeeeee* Enjoy~!

TCA: Get back here!

-x-

A week after the start of school, Harry and Ron found themselves enjoying strangely good weather. It was a Saturday, and they were lounging easily on the grass by the lake. Harry was talking to his friend about why he thought the flavor of the pudding was all off last night, and Ron was disagreeing.

"Honestly, Harry, I don't know what your problem is. The pudding last night was delicious!"

"No, it really wasn't."

"Was too."

"Was not."

"Was too." They continued in this vein for a little while, when suddenly Harry felt a cold chill run up his spine. This was strange, because it was usually his scar that symbolically foreshadowed creepy and mentally-scarring events to come... He shoved this thought to the back of his mind, and slowly turned around. No one was there. He let out a small sigh of relief, and turned back to Ron, who had suddenly turned invisible.

"Ron? This is really no time to show off your mad skills," Harry said, crossing his arms over his chest. A giggle and an exclamation drew the boy's attention towards the lake. There was Ron, unceremoniously plopped in the squelchy mud at the edge of the lake. He lifted a hand up from the goop, and watched as the muck slowly oozed off his fingers. He glared at Harry.

"Thanks a load, Harry," he said miserably. Suppressing laughter, Harry got up and walked over to his friend, and extended a hand to help him up. Ron's hands were slippery with mud, but Harry was able to pull him up. Smiling, the black-haired boy turned to walk out of the bank, and was greeted with an upside-down scary face, deathly pale and with blood-red lips, eyes sunken in and haunted, but a surprisingly familiar shade of dark blue, and (also strikingly familiar) pale blonde hair hanging straight down in a shimmery curtain.

"Boo," the smallest Abigail grinned. With a small squeal and a yelp, Harry fell in a spectacular arc that managed to be both a slip and a leap at the same time. He landed on his back in the spot Ron had just recently vacated. Groaning, he sat up to see all three Abigails sitting in the nearby tree and chortling, quite pleased with themselves. Harry drew in a breath to yell at them, but stopped at a gesture from Ron. The two both tried to stand up on their own, but only succeeded in falling face-down in the mud, bringing a new chorus of laughter from the girls in the tree. Surreptitiously, the two boys gathered mud in their hands, sculpting it as they "tried and failed" to get up. Suddenly, in one motion, the two straightened up and hurled the balls of mud towards the girls in the tree. The soft muck splattered on impact with the branches and trunk—ok, so Harry and Ron's aims weren't the best—and got on the robes of the girls. They stopped laughing abruptly, and looked down with eery silence. The dirty-blonde grinned.

"So this is how you want to play, huh?" The Collective Abigail leapt from the tree to land cat-like on the ground, and began gathering mud balls of their own. With stupendous war cries and some not-so-stupendous fight yodels, the two groups set upon each other with splattering, smelly "fury". Eventually, the commotion attracted fellow students, mostly Gryffindors. Soon it was a full-scale mud battle, and no one was safe.

"STOP!" a feminine voice cried. Surprisingly, everyone halted where they were, and turned to face the girl who had spoken. Bushy hair bounced as Hermione tapped her foot in aggravation. "Don't you realize that if the teachers were to glance out the window and see this, we'd all be in detention for weeks! Honestly, you just don't _think_!"

Although many wanted to splatter the busy-body for interfering with their fun, they had to admit that she had a point. Someone actually did let one fly at the girl, but it missed and hit someone in the face instead. With a loud "GROSS", the boy yanked off his robes and waded into the lake in his uniform, scrubbing at his face. There was a brief moment, silent but for the sputtering, splashing sounds of the kid, then everyone clambered at once into the edges of the lake. Hermione found herself the mostly unwilling guardian of over a dozen robes while everyone scrubbed themselves clean. The few older students who had gotten involved were nice enough to temporarily transfigure robes into fluffy towels, and as student after student wandered back out and into a fluffy towel, Ron and Harry found themselves alone in the lake with the Collective Abigail again. Hermione had left in a satisfied huff, so their robes were hanging un-transfigured from the branches of the tree. The boys stared at the girls, and there was an awkward silence. Then the burliest Abigail broke the stand-still with a grin and a nod.

"Not bad, boys." With that, the Collective Abigail wandered off, grabbing their towels as they went. Harry and Ron stared after them, agape.

"D'you have any idea what just happened?" Harry asked Ron finally, turning. Ron shook his head with a gulp.

"Nah, mate, none at all." There was silence for a moment, then,

"They're pretty scary, though."

"Yes, Ron. Yes they are."

-x-

Please review~! I've got about half the next chapter up, and I'm sorry for this one being so short! I'll make it up in the next one, honest! I'm neglecting my Fictionpress story for joo~! XD /whine

~Latni-chan~


	3. Busted!

Me: Hi again~! ^_^ So this chapter is a bit longer than the others, and hopefully meets with satisfaction.

Frankie: *sulking*

Me: He's just annoyed at me for saying that no, he cannot molest Remus. Again.

Remus: Thanks for that. Anyway, she doesn't own anything in this story, except for the Abigails and the auburn-haired sixth-year—whose name does show up here.

Doctor: She may have also noticed that the characters were a tad bit wonky, so, apologies. Now, on with the story! Allons-y!

**-x-**

Still a bit wet, Ron and Harry walked back to the castle. They went into the Gryffindor common room, and, ignoring the curious stares of other people, disappeared into their dormitory. They placed the cold, and slightly smelly robes on the drying rack in the center of their dorm, and changed silently into their spares. The two boys looked at each other, squared their shoulders, and returned to the common room. The Abigails were sitting on a couch, the stubby one lounging, the brunette one braiding the hair of the tiny one who sat with her legs hugged to her thin chest and her back to the other two. Harry and Ron sat down slowly across from them. Neither group said anything.

The rest of the dormitory seemed to stay quiet, except for a few pats on the back and "thanks for the fun"s from random classmates who happened to walk by the five. After a few awkward moments, Hermione came and broke the tension by flopping down in between the two boys with a huff. She glared first at Ron, then Harry.

"How'd all that foolishness start, anyway?" she asked. "You two didn't seem like the type at first." Ron looked across her at Harry, who in turn was staring incredulously at Hermione.

"You honestly think _we_ started it?" Harry asked. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the brunette Abigail tense, and start braiding the tiny one's hair much more gently to make up for her slip. The burly one shifted in her seat, seemingly coincidentally leaning forward. Harry blinked, but turned back to Hermione.

"Well, if you didn't, then who did?" she asked, eyes betraying a flicker of curiosity.

"I suddenly saw Ron sitting in the mud, walked over to find him, and..." He trailed off, suddenly confused. He rounded on Ron, who looked as though he were desperately trying to tempt the cushions into eating him, and, failing, decided to stuff himself in them. Harry snapped in his face to get his attention, and Ron looked up sheepishly. "Why were you in the mud, Ron?" The redhead bit his lip.

"Well, you see... I had spaced out in our conversation to see one of the Abigails. I think it was the brunette. She appeared to be in intense conversation with something in the puddle." Harry saw the Abigails shift again, this time the tiny one with them. Her finished braid swung behind her head as she turned to lean against the back of the couch. "I asked her what she was doing, and she said that she'd lost this plastic ring of hers. So I said I'd help her, and then she smiled and sat me down in the mud before sprinting up into that tree." His eyes grew vacant, remembering. "She did this wicked twirl around the branch—"

"That's enough, Ronald," Hermione cut in sharply. She turned to Harry again. "I assume this is where you come in?" Harry opened his mouth to answer before someone came up to him. It was that sleepy auburn-haired sixth year. He yawned slightly, stretching as he stood in front of the three.

"Minnie wants to see you thr—wait," he said slowly, blinking at Hermione. He shook his head. "Not you. Those two—" he pointed to Harry and Ron— "and those three," he finished finally, spinning around and finding the Collective Abigail. Harry and Ron looked at each other, a sinking feeling occurring somewhere in the vicinity of their spleens. The sixth year yawned again, then snapped suddenly, making all six first years jump. "Come on, then, haven't got all day."

Harry stood up slowly, gesturing to Ron to do the same. He bit his lip and attempted to smooth down his unruly hair, to no avail. The Collective Abigail stood up, nearly in unison, and the five filed out after the sixth year.

As they walked down the hallway, it was completely silent except for the humming of the older boy and the occasional sneeze or cough. Tiny Abigail was pulling her hair out of her braids absent-mindedly, the soft light hair falling in slightly wavy curtains around her face. She shook her head, accidently hitting Ron in the face.

"Sorry," she whispered, grinning impishly. The redhead turned away with a huff, crossing his arms across his thin chest. They finally arrived at the office of the stern Transfiguration professor, where the sixth year left them.

"I'm going back to the Common Room," he yawned. Brunette Abigail stopped him.

"Wait!" she said. He turned back around, blinking. She crossed her arms and stuck her chin out. "Since you keep popping up, we might as well learn your name." He hesitated for a second, and yawned some more. A defiant look from Brunette Abigail made up his mind.

"It's Bartholemew," he said, scratching the back of his head in embarrassment. Ron looked at the sixth year in amazement, then sputtered with laughter. In his slightly hysterical mirth—which may have been fueled by a breakdown caused by beliefs that McGonagall would roast them alive, spread their roast corpses on stale biscuits, and feed them to Hagrid, a "certainty" promised him by Fred and George—he sat down on the ground and pounded a fist on the wall.

Said wall promptly opened, and an annoyed McGonagall stepped out, a tartan tin of ginger newts in her hand. Bartholemew glided away, mumbling something about nap time and bumping into a few people. Ron looked in horror at the tin. Harry looked in horror at the teacher. The Collective Abigail looked at each other, and mischievous grins spread across their faces. Harry gave up on looking at McGonagall, and cast a terrified glance at the triplets.

"Do come in," McGonagall hissed through clenched teeth. The five scurried to obey, and the wall-that-was-actually-a-door swung shut behind them.

Hastily conjured chairs crowded the generally mano a mano spot at the professor's desk, and the five first years sat in them. McGonagall sat in the chair behind the desk, lips pressed into a thin line in annoyance.

"Have a ginger newt," she said with forced calm, shaking the tin at them. Ron, panicked, looked from the cheerfully menacing fire nearby in the grate to the tin of stale biscuits. He began to shake. McGonagall shoved one of the cookies in his face.

"I insist," she growled. Ron twitched, and suddenly fell off his chair to roll on the floor, gibbering about "roasty toasty Hagrid snacks". McGonagall blinked, and put the cookie back in the tin.

"Should I be worried?" she asked the remaining four. Harry shrugged, still staring at the convulsing red-head.

"I think he's foaming at the mouth," Tiny Abigail remarked serenely, calmly pulling her legs up onto her chair as Ron neared her. McGonagall cleared her throat, and looked away.

"Well, he'll be fine," she decided. She turned her attention instead to the four remaining students, and her sharp glare was back.

"Whatever possessed you to act this way?" she demanded, slamming her hands down on the table and looking between Harry, horrified, and the Collective Abigail, calm. Brunette Abigail cocked her head to the side, listening.

"We'd love to tell you ma'am," she said, gesturing to the other two. She slipped off her chair and headed for the door. McGonagall looked at her strangely, but her attention was stolen by the other two.

"And suddenly, a marmoset swung from the tree and shoved Harry in the mud—right Harry?—and he fell down by Ron. They started throwing mud—not at us, but at the marmoset," Burly Abigail recounted, crossing her arms over her chest. Harry nodded mutely at the bits where she glanced over at him. Tiny Abigail's dark blue eyes grew vacant and her pupils shrank to tiny slits.

"It was controlled by someone with mischievous intent, someone destined to appear through this door," she said harshly, her voice echoed with a demonic undertone. At this cue, Brunette Abigail yanked open the door, and Malfoy fell through the opening. The three Abigails and Harry, who was getting a feel for this plot by now, jumped to their feet with a triumphant "ah-HA!", Tiny Abigail's voice now back to normal after she cleared her throat surreptitiously.

Malfoy blinked up at the four and McGonagall, his eyes wide. McGonagall's left eyebrow disappeared into her hair.

"Am I to believe that this entire mud fight was started because of an insane monkey that lives nowhere near here that was controlled somehow by a fellow first-year?" she asked. The Collective Abigail's eyes widened innocently.

"Oh, no, Professor! It's most certainly the fault of the marmoset." The professor was now thoroughly confused, but did not let it show.

"Explain," she barked. The Collective Abigail grinned at each other.

"The marmoset was in full control of its actions. It was only a pet of Malfoy, here, and noticed how much he didn't like poor Harry and Ron. So it took revenge into its own hands. Paws. Limbs. Whatever they're called on a monkey." McGonagall was now annoyed at the children for wasting her time.

"Are you planning on showing any evidence?" she asked. Burly Abigail grinned, and waved at Tiny Abigail. She skipped merrily the three steps over to Malfoy, and cheerfully pulled up his pantleg to the knee.

"Ta-da!" she exclaimed, pointing to the lone blond hair that was found there. With a hummed fanfare, courtesy of the two other Abigails, and a drum roll, courtesy of Harry, she plucked the hair off his knee. She grinned. "It's from his head! Mystery solved, good work soldiers, back to the—" she stopped here, because a mystical Author Intervention had stuffed a kumquat in her gob.

_Don't say that, it's probably copyrighted. _She chewed through the fruit, and pouted.

"Can I at least make him say the other thing?" she asked the rightmost wall. The others in the room looked at each other, all thinking along the same lines of she's-crazy-must-get-away-before-the-crazy-contaminates-my-brains.

_Meh. Why not._ Tiny Abigail grinned, and bent down. She whispered something in Malfoy's ear, and he looked up at her, thoroughly confused and a bit annoyed.

"Why should I do that?" he grumbled. Tiny Abigail huffed.

"Just say it," she said. Malfoy mumbled something that sounded like "fine".

"And I would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for you meddling kids," he said, shaking his fist. McGonagall shook her head and pinched the bridge of her nose. Her "pumpkin juice" had better be strong at dinner tonight...

"Fine," she said with forced calm. "If none of you will tell me, then you will all serve two nights detention cleaning off the trophies. And ten points off from each of your houses." She gestured towards Ron, who now was in the fetal position, as far away from the fire as he could get, muttering to himself. "Now get out of my sight and take him to the Hospital Wing. These tiles aren't protected against drool."

"Yes, ma'am," Harry and the Collective Abigail chorused. Malfoy made a general blah, but refrained from commenting. The four Gryffindors grabbed Ron, and began hauling him to Madame Pomfrey.

**-x-**

I seem to be mentioning kumquats a lot. . . Oh well. Please review~! There's a Bartholemew hug in it for you~! ^_^


	4. Biscuits

I'm sorry! I've been busy! "orz

Updates: The story will now be updated every weekend. If it is not up by Monday, feel free to yell at me. I'll need it. XD

Bartholemew hugs to **Lvmj**,** DarkLvmj**,** Uke Kitty**, and** InsertManiacLaughterHere**~! Or just huge enormous thanks if you don't want a Bartholemew hug. XD

Disclaimer: Characters may be pretty OOC here, I apologize for that. It's the fault of the Collective Abigail, I'm afraid. XD Also, I dinnae own anything except Bartholemew and TCA.

**-x-**

**...Biscuits**

"You should have seen him, he was practically bawling his eyes out," Harry chortled in the common room to Bartholemew. Ron sat sulkily on the other side of the sofa, pointedly looking the other direction. The sixth year had been interested in hearing how they'd managed to escape "Minnie" with only two detentions and ten points. Harry had told him, without mentioning how scared he himself had been, of course. When he told the redhead how the Abigails had gotten them out of it, a rare mischievous grin spread across the sixth-year's tired face.

"That's _brilliant_," he snickered, glancing over at where the three girls sat, playing assorted muggle card games. Tiny Abigail looked up, sensing his gaze, and smiled innocently. He waved over at the three of them before turning back to Harry.

"And now Malfoy has to do detention also," Harry said, unable to keep a slightly smug tone from his voice.

"Hm, I know the kid. At those stuffy family functions, he'd always sit and sneer with his father at those of us with close family who'd married muggles. It was a little ridiculous, since we're all pretty much in the same family," Bartholemew yawned. Ron peered over.

"You're a pureblood?" he asked. Bartholemew shrugged, turning the motion into a stretch.

"'Bout as much as you are, kid." With that, he yawned, curled up on the couch, and fell asleep. Harry blinked.

-x-

He and Ron served their detentions with Malfoy and the Abigails, cleaning trophies. Malfoy usually went off to the other side of the room on his own, huffing something about the air being tainted with Gryffindor stench. This served the five well, and they cleaned mostly without incident. The second time, Bartholemew snuck them up some sandwiches, since they'd missed dinner due to homework and then the detention. They munched on them happily, Burly Abigail melodramatically moaning that she had been famished before digging into hers. They were all five working on shining up a giant shield-thing when they found it out.

The five Gryffindors were playing a game, slightly like the muggle game of Taboo. One person would think of a word, and try to get the others to guess what it was with clues. Currently it was Brunette Abigail's word. She bit her lip, shining a scuffed spot that looked like a footprint.

"They're sort of like cookies," she said finally.

"Cakes?" Harry offered. She shook her head. "Pastries?" She shook her head again. Suddenly, he grinned. "Biscuits!" he shouted happily.

"Splurk." Everyone stared at Ron, who had twitched in his cleaning, but continued on. He stopped to look at the others. "What?" he asked, slightly annoyed. Tiny Abigail grinned.

"Biscuits."

"Splurk." The four others looked at each other, quadruplet grins spreading across their young faces. Ron glared at them. "Let's just keep cleaning," he said, turning back to the trophy. He began shining at the footprint. Brunette Abigail pouted at him.

"That was my spot."

"Not anymore."

"... Biscuits."

"Splurk."

-x-

The morning after Halloween, Harry, Ron, and Hermione went down to breakfast together. By unspoken agreement, they sat near each other, close to the end of the table. Harry and Ron sat on one end, and Hermione sat across from them. They ate their breakfast mostly quietly, apart from a bit of small talk and griping about classes. They almost didn't notice when three figures crept up, until they pounced.

"Hello, Collective Abigail," Hermione said calmly, munching on toast. Ron blinked as Tiny Abigail sat next to him, while Burly Abigail and Brunette Abigail sat on either side of Hermione. Harry stared at them over his breakfast as Brunette Abigail serenely spread marmalade on her own slice of toast.

"Harry's not signing autographs, so you lot can clear out," Ron grumbled, still sore about the occurrences in the trophy room. All three Abigails blinked, their identical pieces of toast halfway to their mouths.

"Why would Harry be signing autographs? Is he famous or something?" they chorused, staring at Ron. His eyes widened.

"Harry Potter, savior of the wizarding world?" The Collective Abigail glanced at each other, and shook their heads.

"Doesn't ring a bell," they said, continuing eating their toast. Ron gaped at them for a moment, before shrugging and going back to his feast.

"Besides," Tiny Abigail continued casually, "we actually didn't come for you. We came to check up on Bartholemew." Harry did a double take. Sitting right next to him, eating an oversized doughnut and reading _The Quibbler_, was the auburn-haired sixth year himself. He rounded on Ron and Hermione.

"How did we not notice he was right here?" he asked. The two shrugged. Bartholemew looked over the top of the magazine at the six.

"Oh, hi," he said, taking a bit of his doughnut, "you ready for your first Quidditch game, Harry?"

Harry gulped, and Ron slapped him on the back.

"Of course he is! He's been training for weeks. It's not like Gryffindor will be disadvantaged because he's so young and everyone on the Slytherin team is bloody _huge_—"

"Ron." Harry glared at the redhead, ignoring the fact that his face had turned a rather delicate mix of green and pink. His friend grinned at him, and the messy haired boy turned back to his breakfast.

"Shut up before I stuff your face with biscuits."

"Splurk—DAMMIT, HARRY!"

**-x-**

That's it~! I'm sorry again that it's so short! "orz Please, please review! Oversized doughnuts/biscuits for reviewers! ^_^ Next chapter will be up next weekend at the latest.


	5. A Tropical Coconut BatBird

I'm sooo sorry! "orz I've been busy, really, I have! T3T Plus, the Abigails have been uncooperative recently. _

I hope you're not too angry with meeeee~

**-x-**

Harry's next day was filled to the brim with bliss. He stumbled through it in a haze, overjoyed that Gryffindor had won the Quidditch match. The Abigails had even offered him their congratulations, Tiny going so far as to pat him on the head with a coo of "good Harry". He was sure he'd smiled at them, at some point. The look on Malfoy's face, however, was the absolute best. He looked like someone had stolen his puppy, punted it across Canada into a vat of toxic sludge, and then handed it back to him. The only confusion was Bartholemew.

"We had a Quidditch match yesterday?" he replied, his mildly surprised face peeking over the top of the latest issue of _The Quibbler_. "How interesting," he mused, going back to "_101 Ways to Tell if Your Snarglebush Has an Infestation of Rosie-Crumblers"_. Ron gaped.

"Harry caught the snitch and won the game for our house," Hermione proclaimed proudly to the sixth-year. He poked his face back over to look at Harry, who was attempting to drown himself in toast. The redhead smiled.

"Nice job, Harry," he said. He then put his magazine more firmly in front of his face, ending the conversation. The Abigails looked on with mild amusement. Ron rounded on them.

"What's up with him?" he asked them. Burly shrugged.

"We've known him just as long as you have," she replied, going back to her food.

"But while y'all were playing or watching the match, he was sleeping," Brunette said.

"On the roof!" Tiny added cheerfully. Seeing no further place for this conversation to go, Harry decided to turn to small talk, which turned to talk of classes, which turned to complaining about Snape, and soon to mocking the professor. They all left the breakfast table in high spirits, which didn't last long.

-x-

"_Why_ did you remind us?" Ron moaned, hitting his head on the desk repeatedly. Hermione glared at him.

"I assumed you'd done it already!"

"Well, of course we haven't!"

"How should I know you were a procrastinator as well as an idiot?"

Harry attempted to tune out most of the bickering, and turned with a sad face to his own small mound of weekend homework. He really had forgotten all about it. He dragged the first thing towards him, vowing silently to get at least one thing done before it was due.

"_Two-page essay on the Centaur-Wizard-Troll trading triangle of 1205?_" Harry murmured incredulously to himself. Hermione stopped abruptly in the middle of an insult concerning Ron's parentage, a fifteen-pound poodle, and six bottles of rum to beam at Harry.

"Oh, I found that fascinating. I took tons of notes on it, didn't you? Almost ran out of parchment!" Ron rolled his eyes at the girl behind her back, and Harry bit back a smile.

"Y-yeah, I did. Loads of them. Real great. 1205, brilliant year for, er, centaurs," he said, quickly glancing at the assignment to make sure he didn't get it wrong. He smiled hopefully up at her. Hermione deflated with a huff.

"You can borrow my notes, if you must," she said finally, passing over a pile of parchment. Harry gave her a lopsided grin.

"You're the best, Hermione." Ron looked vaguely disgruntled as he turned back to his homework, probably annoyed that Harry had gotten the notes first.

Suddenly, everything went black.

"Hey, who turned out the—"

"BISCUITS."

"Splurk—what did I do this time?" Ron sputtered indignantly.

"Clichéd phrase, Ronald. Don't use it," Hermione replied. Harry blinked into the darkness. Somehow, he wasn't unconscious. Being knocked out and/or passing out, though excellent assumptions at the time, were out of the question. His confusion was short-lived, however, as light flared up, and the trio groaned in discomfort, shielding their eyes from the brightness. Harry blinked rapidly, and the grinning faces of three girls he sadly recognized came into focus out of the light.

"Oh no," he muttered.

-x-

"Why are we doing this again?" Harry whined. He and Tiny were crouched in an alcove by the entrance to the dungeons, waiting for Snape to exit. She grinned impishly.

"We're doing it for giggles, of course," she replied, before shushing him. Harry fell silent as Snape swept by them, close enough for Harry to touch his greasy hair, if he wished—though he'd have to be mentally ill to want to touch the oily, matted locks. They were, however, the reason that he and Tiny were here. Though it had likely been done countless times before, they were going to attempt to give Snape a bath. The plan was simple enough.

"Remind me again why we're doing this the muggle way?" Tiny asked, helping with Harry's modifications to the plan.

"We don't want anything to go wrong, and if we use a spell, we'll probably mess it up," he said simply, lifting his end. They finished what they were doing, and set up the second stage, keeping an eye on the door in case Snape returned early from whatever it was that he was doing. Finally, they placed a wizard camera with plenty of film in it below the desk, and exited the room. They hid in the same alcove they'd been in earlier, and waited. A few minutes later, Snape came sweeping down the hall, his cloak flaring out behind him. He was annoyed, clearly, and didn't notice that his door was very slightly ajar, nor the length of strangely glinting stuff across the bottom of the doorway.

A few loud exclamations later, Snape stalked out of his office, fuming. A bucket perched merrily on his head, soapy water trickling down from it. Along with the suds all over him were copious amounts of silly string and neon-colored fake feathers, courtesy of the trip-wire-activated can and the second bucket. He stormed off down the hallway, leaving a feathery trail of coconut-scented shampoo bubbles.

Laughing only slightly hysterically, overjoyed at having pulled off their stunt, Tiny and Harry walked back into his office, stepping over the mess, and retrieved the camera. The picture had been taken as the door opened, and the pair hurried back to the others, who were hiding out in a "secret room" they'd found in the common room.

"That was brilliant," Harry snorted. Tiny grinned.

"I can't wait for Malfoy's turn," she said, rubbing her hands together.

Back inside the "secret room", Bartholemew developed their film. The group laughed again as they watched the Potions Master get a feather bath and a silly string ambush a couple of times. The sixth-year, who'd been on the wrong end of quite a few unfair points-subtractions, and a couple of unnecessary detentions, took his own bit of savage glee from the spectacle. The picture was pinned up on a hastily conjured bulletin board. Hermione took Harry and Ron aside, using the excuse that she wanted to hear all the details.

"What did Hagrid tell you about Nicholas Flamel?" she hissed at Harry. The messy-haired boy bit his lip.

"Nothing, really. He just said that the contents of the package were between Dumbledore and Flamel, and that's all," he whispered back. Hermione looked frustrated.

"Well, we can't talk here," Ron said, being the voice of reason for once. He looked around at the Abigails and Bartholemew. "It's best we don't get them mixed up in all this."

Harry nodded, and the three disbanded. The little group went to bed afterwards, and Harry's dreams were filled with strange images of Dumbledore and a faceless figure opening the package to have a soapy Snape spring out at them, wearing a neon dress with lots of fringe and tassels. He decided it was weird enough to be called a nightmare.

**-x-**

Please review! Copies of the Snape wizard picture for reviewers~! ^_^ (So sorry~)


	6. IMPORTANT

**Important announcement, y'alls.**

For the people who actually care:

I will no longer be continuing TCA. I have lost inspiration for it, and since I hate it when people just leave behind stories that haven't been updated for years with no explanation, I will just mark it as complete and leave it discontinued.

Thanks for your reviews, and I apologize.

I may be writing other things, but I'm currently focusing on original stories rather than fanfiction. If you're interested in checking that out, by all means please go visit my fictionpress, which is also Shade the Viridescent. It's a lot more likely that I'll be putting up stories there.

**TL;DR:** No more TCA, thanks for reviewing, my bad.


End file.
